Gas at $100 per Gallon
Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 27 May 2008 18:00:55 GMT | 7 comments
Here is an interesting thought experiment: how would our lives change if gas cost $100 per gallon?
Slippery Slope: Cantarell Leading the Way?
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 01 May 2008 17:36:35 GMT | no comments
Once everyeone realizes that oil production has peaked, the main factor on whether the world can make an orderly transition to renewable energy depends mainly on how fast production falls. If oil production falls slowly, we will be able to build up our alternative energy infrastructure with only major inconveniences. However, if it falls rapidly, dire consequences could result including recession, famine and war.
The best way to tell whether the decline will be fast or slow is to look at existing large oil fields that are in decline. If we base this on Cantarell, the news is not good.
Cantarell was the second largest producing oil field in the world. It peaked in 2004 and production fell 31% in the following 3 years. This year, it will likely decline by 18%. At this rate, production from Cantarell will drop by 80% in just 5 years.
Let’s hope that Cantarell is not indicative of the other super-giant oil fields, or the world would be in for severe trouble.
Friedman: Our Political Brownout on Energy Policy
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 01 May 2008 15:51:51 GMT | no comments
Thomas Friedman, author of ‘The World is Flat just wrote a very intelligent op-ed piece for the New York Times titled: ‘Dumb as We Wanna Be’. Here are some edited excerpts:
Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy – this is money laundering. The idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.
The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.
NanoSolar: The Company That Might Save the World
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 01 May 2008 14:55:26 GMT | no comments
Yesterday, I shook the hand of the man whose company might just save the world.
He is Martin Roscheisen, CEO of NanoSolar. He alluded that they are producing solar panels at about $1 per watt with a complete system cost of $2 watt when installed in municipal scale of 1MW to 50MW. This is about the same cost as a coal-fired power plant!
Furthermore, their panels can be installed at the rate of 1MW per day, and need 5 acres per MW, which means a municipal sized system of 50MW can be installed in about two months. This contrasts with coal-fired plants that can take 4 years or more to build.
Drawbacks? Their German plant is producing only about 420 MW of solar capacity per year and their San Jose plant which will open in 2009 will produce about the same. While this is very high by normal PV standards, it would help the world greatly if this went up by several orders of magnitude.
Just think – instead of building more coal plants we can start building clean solar power systems at about the same cost!
Feed-in Tariffs
Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:49:49 GMT | no comments
Wind power can now produce energy as cheaply as coal, about 5c per kilowatt hour (kWh). Solar power is almost to the point where it can produce energy at the marginal electrical rate of about 10c kWh. So with oil prices over $100 barrel, natural gas prices doubling, and all the concern about CO2 and other noxious emissions from coal plants, why aren’t more wind and solar projects being built?
GreenVolts Seminar
Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:18:39 GMT | no comments
Last night I attended a seminar put on by the Going Green! meetup group and the speaker was Craig Lewis who is VP Government Relations with GreenVolts. GreenVolt’s goal is to “deliver power to utility companies at fossil fuel costs”.
Craig talked a little about the GreenVolts product, which is a concentrating solar collector system with advanced tracking and is designed to be interconnected at the 12kv distribution level in sizes ranging from 1 to 20 mega-watts (MW). However, his main topic was “Accelerating the Transition to Smart Energy.” His conclusion was that to make alternative energy sources take off, the government needs to shift the subsidies paid to oil companies into long-term feed-in tariffs, i.e. requiring the electric companies to buy power at a set price for the next 10 to 15 years. This would allow alternative energy projects to have a guaranteed return and thus enable them to get long-term financing.
While Craig wouldn’t divulge the cost of their system, he did say it was about half of a typical flat-panel installation, so I am guessing that the cost is about $4 per watt, which would mean they could produce power at less than 9.5c per kilowatt, which is the rate they would be selling it to the utilities.
He also threw out some other interesting numbers:- Their system requires 3 acres per MW or 100 MW per square mile, which is a higher power density than other systems
- Oil imports comprise more than half of the U.S. deficit
- Oil companies received about $17 billion last year in subsidies while solar industry only got $200 million.
Here are the complete notes:
Cost of a Solar Nation
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:38:48 GMT | 4 comments
How much would it cost to build a solar nation? Here are some interesting numbers:
The IEA estimates that it will take a worldwide investment of $5.4 trillion dollars in oil exploration and development in order to meet the demand for oil in 2030, if oil usage continues to grow at its current rate. Since the U.S. uses about 25% of the worlds oil, our cost would be about $1.35 trillion.
Scientific American estimates that if we provide less than a third of this amount as a subsidy – $420 billion – then we can build a solar collection, storage and distribution system that would provide 69% of America’s electricity and 35% of it’s total energy by 2050.
So, can anyone say that building a solar nation is too expensive?
Solar Concentrators Below $1/watt
Posted by Max Dunn Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:08:48 GMT | no comments
Today I went to an interesting Energy Seminar at Stanford. The speaker was Scott Elrod who works for Parc and studied Applied Physics at Stanford. He was talking about a product they are working on called the SolFocus which is a concentrating solar collector and their hope is to get this down to $1/watt. Here are the notes from the talk:
Cost Breakdown of a Gallon of Gas
Posted by Max Dunn Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:58:34 GMT | 2 comments
With gas prices spiking up, it is interesting to look at the breakdown of the cost of a gallon of gasoline.
A barrel of oil holds 42 gallons. So if oil is at $100 per barrel, a gallon would cost about $2.40. Refining the oil adds another $0.35 and taxes about $0.65 (in California). Add another $0.10 for distribution, marketing and profits, and you have a gallon of gas costing $3.50.
Using these same numbers, if oil goes to $200/barrel, a gallon of gas will cost almost $6!
Only Locally Grown Food After Peak Oil?
Posted by Max Dunn Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:41:48 GMT | 1 comment
Many peak oil people envision that after oil becomes scarce, civilization will revert back to the way it was 100 years ago. In particular, they feel that large, centralized farms will not be viable and that only locally grown food will be available. I believe otherwise. I think that centralized farming is much more energy efficient than a multitude of local farms and will continue to supply the bulk of our food.
This was reinforced by some statistics I saw that showed that out of the total energy needed to produce and prepare food, only 14% was related to transportation of that food. Since this is a small percentage of the total energy usage, and electric vehicles could make this even more efficient, you can’t make an argument that transporting food is going to be the main problem after peak oil
